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Help Design the Dining Room
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I need your help! We built this house in 2008. We just recently got a
dining room set. Prior to this, a (different) hutch and small breakfast
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Thursday, May 26, 2011

Cooking Flops

Just because I like to share recipes on this blog does not mean I'm a good cook. Nor does it mean I can always follow a recipe. I'm sure you know that some recipes just aren't meant to be duplicated. I wish I was talking about them, but I am talking about my own human failures.

In the past I've had some problems.

I burn things. A lot. Too many to count.

*first time I made the chocolate chip cookie pie that I love so much, the recipe called for 1 1/2 sticks of butter. I put in 1 1/2 CUPS instead-twice the amount called for. It never hardened, and was really rich, but pretty good.

*I forgot blueberries in blueberry coffeecake. Our company arrived as I was about to fold them in to the batter. They were rinsed and in the sink-out of sight. It wasn't until I returned to the sink to clean up that I realized my mistake.

*I've made the occasional loaf of bread that wasn't completely cooked in the middle.

Recently I made cinnamon rolls. I couldn't figure out why I didn't like the icing (though I'm not a huge fan anyway). Derek realized the cream cheese was too strong. The original recipe called for one 3 ounce package of cream cheese. I didn't notice the 3 ounces, and used a full brick of 8 ounces. It was definitely still edible though.

The worst mistake I probably made when I forgot to add brown sugar to apple crisp. I couldn't figure out where I went wrong, but Derek certainly did.

This weekend I had another butter issue with the chocolate chip cookie pie. I only use 1/2 cup of butter (1 stick). When I was preparing to make the pie, I set the butter outside to soften. It is such an easy recipe (1/2 cup sugar, brown sugar, flour, butter, 2 eggs, and 1 cup chips) that I don't need the recipe. Well, I didn't think I needed it. But this weekend I forgot the butter altogether. I added extra chips, so I thought it seemed thicker than usual, but blamed it on the chocolate and peanut butter chips. Oops. We ate it the first night, but ended up throwing it away because it was SO hard!

Derek and I were laughing at all of these when he brought up how he recently doubled the Crisco in the chocolate chip cookies he was making. They weren't exactly good.

When Derek and I were dating and first married, I lost a few quite a few pot holders or kitchen towels to hot burners. Since we moved into our new home almost three years ago, I have not had this problem. We now have a flat top stove, which seems to help. It has an indicator to let me know when it is hot.

See, I have experienced some improvements, or at least one! What has been your biggest cooking disaster?

(* Indicates that others had the blessing of eating it, instead of just my family.)

My biggest flop occurred when we had guests over for dinner. Of course! I was making a chicken noodle dish and was convinced to use some older "vegan-ish" noodles which were long since past their prime. The noodles became SO mushy and clumped together in disgusting looking balls. You couldn't tell if you were about to take bit of chicken or a bit of noodles. Horrific. And it would have been embarrassing except that my guests were gracious and I found the humor in it immediately. But that's definitely something I hope never happens again!